Pain Management - Chapter 6
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Standard disclaimer: Sherlock, John and all other mentioned characters belong to BBC or Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I just borrowed them for fun.I wrote this for my personal delight and improving my English, no copyright infringement intended. No money changed hands and no profit is being made. …
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Part 6 – 221b again
John's POV
Thirty nine hours after Sherlock's collapse at the flat John went 'home' for the first time. Sherlock was finally resting and he needed a break from all of it.
A few hours earlier an unnerved and pain ridden Sherlock had 'convinced' him to go home for the night, take a shower and get some sleep. He had waited until Sherlock was asleep and then needed another two hours get himself up to leave.
John had tried to avoid having to go to Mary's and his flat to get some stuff. He headed right to 221b and decided all he needed was there for now.
When he entered the living room it was still in a kind of disarranged state, the armchairs were in odd angles and there were wrappings lying around from when the ambulance crew had unpacked equipment.
The medical litter made the events come back to him more clearly than he wanted.
He sat down on the sofa heavily, still in his jacket.
How had Sherlock been able to stand or at least sit and do his thing in a state like that?
His recovery would take some time, months at least if all went well.
God, he needed Sherlock to fully recover… not only for Sherlock's sake, but for his own as well.
It was not yet clear if there'd be any kind of permanent damage. It had not been when Sherlock had made it through the first surgery, but after the second it was even more a possibility.
John felt his desperation bloom into a light panic when he thought about how his marriage and the whole situation might have contributed to Sherlock's health damage.
How could he not have seen this coming?
He felt the memory stick in his pocket, it felt like a contaminant in the flat.
Right now he was unable to think about the data it might contain.
He stood up and pulled the small device out, not able to endure to have it on his person for for another minute.
Sherlock's laptop was on the dining table and for a short moment he thought about switching it on and reading the documents.
No, he couldn't… not yet.
He threw the stick onto the chaos on the table and then stood kind of lost in the middle of the room.
The small octagon table he had knocked over in frustration last night was still lying next to the window.
He was tired, but to wired up to make a decision what to do next. He knew he should try to eat something but he couldn't, not now. He knew he should try to get some sleep, but that was impossible right now, too.
This was not the first time he was alone in the flat since Sherlock had come back from the dead, but the emptiness felt as heavy as back then when he had thought Sherlock was dead. The air felt leaden and he felt lost... almost as lost and damaged as he had back then.
Sherlock would survive this!
… and he would help him in every way he could.
The recovering patient would need assistance for quite some time after being released from the hospital.
The silence of the room gained momentum and became almost painful.
No, it was the agony in his soul that tormented him.
He needed to do something - not matter what, just a distraction from it all for a bit… tidying was usually a good way to work the piled up emotions away, it included physical movement, keeping up focues and was not too hard on concentration. Light workout for body and soul… and another positive effect: sorting through stuff helped somehow to get feelings straight, too… and the flat would be neater after it.
He headed for the stairs and went up to his bedroom.
He and Mary had slept here several times and he saw her presence in the room.
It made him sick now to be aware of it… He fetched the bin from near the door and dumped everything that was hers into it. Within the next fifteen minutes he cleaned the night table, the dresser and then went on to the closet.
Clothes, hand lotion, woollen socks, candy, pens all went into the trash.
When he realised he could even smell her perfume in the room he threw open the window and stripped the bed.
The linens flew down the stairs and he bit his lips when he remembered it was almost 22:30 hours and that Mrs Hudson might be asleep already.
The room still looked different from back when he had lived here, so he started putting the furniture and other items back to the positions they had been in back then - as silent as possible.
He even went back to the living room several times to fetch things that used to be in his room but had made their way down into the living room or the kitchen over the time.
Over an hour later he returned to the living room to restore it to it's former state.
He straightened the armchairs but then started running up and down the room, needing to work off some of his nervous energy.
In agitation his fists opened and closed several times before he realised he was doing it.
How could he have been so blind?
Sherlock was right, signs had been there.
Had he been so frantically looking for love and an end of his personal emptiness after Sherlock's death that he had not wanted to see those signs on her?
Had his need for harmony and companionship made him blind for the clues lying under her surface?
Had he really subconsciously chosen her because she was what she was?
That was what they both have said, hadn't they?
Anger now mixed with the sorrow of loss, frustration about himself and them seeing it when he didn't.
Had Mary even consciously used that?
Did she knew who he was before they met?
Did she 'arrange' their relationship?
Or did she just met him, liked him, and had taken her chance?
She had looked ashamed and afraid when they left with the ambulance, though not in a broken way, more in a 'yes, I did that and I am not proud of it, but I can't change it'-way.
She was tough, he knew that all along.
Until yesterday he had thought he knew her, but now it turned out he didn't.
He was an idiot.
But she had said she would do everything to protect him, hadn't she?
Had his deducing abilities died when Sherlock jumped off that roof?
No, but maybe he had kind of shut them down then - at least partially – because it was all too much, he remembered that. It had been too painful to do what they used to do together all alone, whenever he had realised he did it he stopped.
That had probably not done his patients back then any good… he was a lousy doctor not to have seen how badly Sherlock had needed medical attention and painkillers.
No, he had seen it but he had ignored it, which was even far worse.
Sherlock could have died from their combined ignorance of his body's needs.
Dammit!
He knew Sherlock loved dramatic case solving... he should've stopped him… but to be honest, he would've needed to knock Sherlock out to make him get medical attention. Sherlock wouldn't have listened, no matter how much he would have tried to convince him.
He had knocked Sherlock out in the hospital twice already, which was not exactly standard procedure, especially since he wasn't Sherlock's official doctor. But he knew his friend and he knew he would've damaged himself back then if he hadn't interfered.
This time his own distress had prevented to care for his the other man.
So often after Sherlock's fall he had hated himself for not seeing the signs and help Sherlock before it had come to the suicide.
Now, he knew he couldn't have seen them because it had not been a suicide at all. But with this, he should have seen the signs.
The fact that his friend had called the ambulance himself was quite a surprise… Maybe Sherlock hadn't really been thinking about his health but also about him… John had told him that he wouldn't manage if Sherlock died again, so maybe he hadn't done it out of self-preservation, but for him?
Well, it didn't matter why, the important thing was he had done it at all.
It was a shock to see Sherlock like this, whimpering in pain… he had seen many patients doing that, but Sherlock was different. He was so strong on the outside, he always managed to keep his masks up when other people were around, John was the only exception - well, Mrs Hudson sometimes, too - but the mask falling when others were around and the visible weakness had shaken him. They had managed so many difficult situations, but this was different.
He didn't know how, but Sherlock had changed so much… when he was honest with himself he was more afraid for Sherlock than he had been before.
He seemed - John barely dared to think it - he seemed more vulnerable now, somehow out of focus and more reckless with his own health.
Sherlock high had been a first in his presence… and it was more than unsettling.
Was it really possible that the idiot had taken drugs to lure Magnussen into thinking he was an addict?
He could have faked that, for god's sake! The man had faked his own death, why didn't he fake taking drugs?
These unknown threats emanating from some lurking darkness were much harder to handle than a suspect shooting at them during a chase.
This was all Magnussen's doing, wasn't it?
He stopped for a bit running nervously around and stared at the fireplace.
Mr Hudson had washed and scrubbed it for hours, it had been quite a scene. John had never heard her cursing that way before.
Magnussen had besmirched her house and her consulting detective, she had taken it personally - and she had made a fuss around Sherlock. As if the man had hurt Sherlock in some way.
The detective himself had ignored the whole thing, not a single word about it.
The flat had smelled of disinfectant and cleaning agents for days… but that was preferable to the smell of urine.
When John passed the table once more he spotted Mary's favourite mug, half full.
He reached for it to take it away but then, with a grunt of frustration, he threw it at the wall. It impacted a foot left from the smiley and spilled tea and shards ran down the wall and the lampshade in front of it.
He stared at the wet spot for almost a minute… and then cursed. He followed the mugs path to make sure the tea hadn't entered the multiple socket-outlet, but turned away immediately when saw the liquid was nowhere near the thing, he then returned to running up and down the room.
The flat was a bit of a mess, his life was a total mess… God, Sherlock was also a mess and it would get really straining as soon as his pain would get manageable… weaning him of the morphine…
He stepped on some plastic. When he knelt down and reached for the sterile wrapping of the cannula dressing he felt the wall that kept his emotions at bay starting to crumple…
The fear to loose Sherlock… the shock about who Mary had been, and the sorrow about how everything had turned out flooded him with desperation.
He stared at the wrapping, the wave of emotions crushed over him and he pressed his right hand over his mouth to mute the silent hick-ups of his agony and guilt.
A memory sprang into his mind… shortly after Sherlock's funeral, he had fallen onto this carpet, having an almost violent meltdown.
The remembered feelings were the last straw, his body started shaking uncontrollably. The recollection of pain over Sherlock's loss mixed with the threat of losing Mary.
He would not sit here on the same spot and cry again. With a great amount of willpower he made it up to his feet and tried to concentrate on something else.
At first he headed for the bathroom, wanting to throw some water into his face, but when he crossed the kitchen he stopped.
He realised that all the minute changes that had been done in the kitchen after the wedding had been undone… The coffee was back at its old place, as was the microscope and the sugar and… the kitchen looked like it used to be.
Sherlock's attentiveness once more overwhelmed him, it was so subtle and… also so huge.
He was shaking - no way denying it - with anger, frustration, fear and sorrow… the whole situation was pressing down on him. He felt lost and it was crushing him down.
Before he reached the bathroom, his strength left him and he slid down the wall between the kitchen and the bathroom door and started sobbing.
It was no use fighting the distress, he would only head into something worse if it piled up, so he let it go… just let it go, let the emotions run wild and get out… he surrendered.
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When he finally managed to raise to his feet in the middle of the night he was aware that he didn't want to sleep in the room he had slept in with Mary, instead he headed for the couch.
His mobile was on the coffee table in front of the sofa, he had placed it there before going up to his room.
It blinked with a new message.
'Just text or call if you need anything. I know are at 221b. Whatever you need, don't hesitate. Greg'
He leaned back on the sofa, spend.
Was it worth to look for a blanket?
It was summer and not cold, but he was shivering… emotional stress, he diagnosed and sat up again, reaching for the blanket and spreading it over his legs. He let his head sink towards the arm-rest, but before he was able to relax, his mobile beeped once more and he reached for it.
His vision was so blurred, he was barely able to read the screen.
'thx'
Was the only thing in the message, he looked at the sender, it said, SH.
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A/N:
Constructive criticism or feedback would make me really happy ;)
